Delia Smith: 'My faith is my inner fire and inspires all I do'

This Easter, in a deeply personal reflection, Delia Smith explains for the
first time her belief in God and how it has sustained and guided her through
life

'The thing, I believe, that underpins any kind of convergence is love, which is, if you like, the end of the story,’ says Delia
Photo: REX FEATURES

By Delia Smith

6:13PM GMT 29 Mar 2013

When asked, this being Easter, to share with Telegraph readers something of my belief in God, my reaction was like Moses’s when told to speak to the mighty Pharaoh: “Sorry, I’m not eloquent enough!” On that occasion, God’s reply was, OK, take Aaron, let him do the talking. So, taking my cue from that, I’m going to begin by letting someone far more eloquent than I am kick things off.

“To those who only know it outwardly, Christianity seems desperately intricate. In reality, taken in its main lines, it contains an extremely simple and astonishingly bold solution to the world.

“In the centre, so glaring as to be disconcerting, is the uncompromising affirmation of a personal God: God as providence, directing the universe with loving, watchful care; and God the revealer, communicating himself to man on the level of and through the ways of intelligence.”

Those words describe absolutely what I believe. They are from a book called The Human Phenomenon, written by a French Jesuit priest called Teilhard de Chardin. In a recent survey by the publishers HarperCollins, it came top of a list of the 100 best spiritual books published in the 20th century. But Teilhard, as well as being a priest, was also a scientist who specialised in palaeontology.

He lived during the first half of the last century. He was way ahead of his time then, and though his books are hard to come by now, and quite difficult to read, he is without doubt a colossus in terms of his contribution to both religion and science, which are subjects so very relevant for today. I bought most of his books in the Sixties and still have this rich treasure trove of challenging thoughts and ideas.

I know very little about science or theology, but since I was a small child I have always believed in God. That is because, being put to bed too early, I developed what is natural to all human life – and that is reflective time, being still and silent, which always brings us to the deeper level of things. Out of this came a thirst to know God, and to search for a meaning and purpose to human life. All I can say now is that the more you search, the more you find. And what a rich heritage there is to learn from – centuries of other people having reflected and searched for meaning and truth.

Let me emphasise here that I’ve never had any kind of “other-worldly” religious experience. I would say I’m pretty well earthed. But what I do experience is all around me, in simple everyday existence, in the wonders of creation and the beauty of human life. So that now there’s a quiet, peaceful certainty about it all, and it’s as natural to me as breathing in and out. Has belief made me a better person? Not in any way shape or form. I have the same frailties and weaknesses that we all have and, like all of us, I wish I didn’t.

So what is the sum total of what I believe? I believe that there is a creator God: a God that created the universe and human life at the centre of it. Homo sapiens were different from their ancestors in that they developed larger brains. With that came self-consciousness: we were enabled to reflect and become thinking beings.

So no more evolving body parts like beaks and snouts in order to hunt and survive. Instead, we worked out how to make tools and so forth. This meant that we could have a hand in controlling the developing universe and in a sense become co-creators. What a programme! To have belief, you need to have an imagination. So, let’s imagine God who created the universe saying, OK guys roll up your sleeves, it’s yours for the taking, go make something of it and find fulfilment. Meanwhile I am “directing with watchful loving care”.

Now quite a bit more imagination is needed. Try to think of a loving father who is besotted with his small son, wanting to support him, stand by him, and help him to a life of fulfilment. There you have it. God inserts himself into humanity to be with us in a sort of creative union, so that we can achieve what we were created for, namely love. Love means total union with one another and with God. Love is stronger than death and love overcomes death.

So where are we now in the scheme of things? Not quite there yet, it has to be admitted. According to Teilhard, the human species will undergo what he calls convergent evolution. My own personal interpretation of this is that we are on the brink of a new phase in human development. Given that civilisations have completed the migratory phase, and that the whole planet is, as it were, fully occupied and up and running, that convergence is showing signs of emerging.

We already speak of being a global village, and, however imperfectly, we have a “united” nations and a “common” market. Teilhard was an inspiration to the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and one contemporary scientist has described him as “a prophet of the internet”, because he saw all those years ago how the evolution of the technological age would affirm his vision.

Perhaps this was put more simply by John Lennon in his poetic song, Imagine. In it, we are asked to imagine “a brotherhood of man” in which the world would be as one. On a personal level, I couldn’t help feeling that while the Olympics were happening we were witnessing, briefly, a cameo of people being bound more closely together.

The thing, I believe, that underpins any kind of convergence is love, which is, if you like, the end of the story. And love, in the mystical tradition throughout the centuries and certainly in all of Teilhard’s teaching, is depicted by fire. It smoulders, it sparks, it flames and spreads, igniting everything in its path. We all possess degrees of this inner fire, which propels the human spirit and is the undercurrent of all human endeavour.

This vision of how we will evolve into a better understanding of what love really means – and how we will reach a point of union with one another and with God – was remarkably and visually flashed around the world on our TV screens at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Each nation arrived with a small copper petal containing a gas lamp, which was then placed next to those of other nations so that all were joined together in concentric circles.

The Olympic flame arrived and was distributed by seven flame-bearers, who then lit each lamp of the outer petals. The flames spread to the rest of the petals. When they were all lit they began to rise slowly to a great height, finally reaching an unlit centre in which they all erupted into one massive fiery circle of flame.

I will end as I started – with the words of one who is more eloquent than I am, Teilhard de Chardin: “Theoretically this transformation of love is quite possible. What paralyses life is failure to believe and failure to dare. The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.”